Monday, March 21, 2011

The media conspiracy

I have a number of relatives who are Glenn Beck and Fox News fans. They regularly send me emails in which the underlying theme is that the “Lame Street” or “drive-by” media is the enabler of a liberal conspiracy to ruin America. One such email today, in combination with a sore back that kept me from going to the Y, prompted me to try to explain why this is a canard. I hate to waste nearly 600 words so I thought I’d post my response.

“I spent 30 years working for Time Warner, one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world. It doesn’t make me the ultimate authority, but I think I have some insights worth considering if you believe the New York Times leads a conspiracy to drag the country into European socialism. I can’t prove you wrong but maybe you’ll at least consider how inherently illogical such a construct is.

I’ll begin by admitting that by-and-large, media people – writers, editors, producers, etc., are more liberal in their political views than the average American. But 50% of all people are more liberal than the average American, so that in itself doesn’t mean all that much. Look to the person on your left and then on your right. One of those people is probably more liberal – or more conservative than you.

But these folks are not defined solely by their political views. They are in the main regular working folks. For every Brian Williams pulling down $10 mil a year there are hundreds of people tolling in good but not great jobs, struggling hard to find a way to find profits in an industry whose customers expect everything for free these days. It’s these people who write the words that Brian Williams speaks each night on the news.

They have mortgages to pay, children to educate, car payments and all the other pressures of modern life just as you do, and just as those with more conservatives views have. They are not exempt from tax hikes, diminished public services, union excesses or financial disasters. They are no less oppressed by political correctness or the excesses that are a part of many well-meaning government/social engineering programs. There is no special category for them; they toil daily in an industry with steadily shrinking employment.

The business they are in is the business of building an audience. There are only two ways to bring revenue into a media company. Either the consumer pays to see/hear it, or advertisers pay them a sliding fee based on the number of people consuming what they produce.

Regardless of any one person’s political point-of-view, that person puts his job in jeopardy if he gives his political views a higher priority than building a larger audience. He risks failure if he aims his story at only those who will agree with his pov; he leaves money on the table if he alienates those he knows do not share his opinions. Despites these facts, it still happens sometimes, but if it happens too often his competitors will notice and will swoop in like the Barbarian hoards and take what has been left up for grabs. It is a blood-thirsty business – the media.

Finally, when you think of Time and Newsweek, think Coke and Pepsi. NBC and CBS? GM and Ford. The New York Times and Washington Post? They are IBM and Apple. It’s impossible to prove a negative, but these companies do not get together and agree to push a set of ideas and ignore another set of ideas. Did we not have electric vehicles for decades because GM and Ford met secretly to agree not to make them? There are naive people who believe this is the case, but logic and facts suggest the reason was that the public did not want them enough to buy them – until they did, and now everyone is making them.

It is no different with the media. The media produces what it believes will sell to an audience that has highly diverse political views. The rewards accrue to those who do that job the best. There are no rewards for political dogma disconnected from the moods of the broadly defined public.”

12 comments:

warrenout said...

Out of the underground. First, a bad back is no excuse, JFK had a bad back and still delivered the goods to Marilyn. Rest and stretching. I think you went to work for Time Warner because you grew up in a town that Was controlled by Helen Hart Hulbert. Whatever she saw fit to print in the Tribune Chronicle or sent over the airwaves on WHHH was the final word. There is no hope for Beck. He is an alarmists, Sometimes, your brain just doesn't work right after you crawl out of the bootle. I agree It really gets down to us that live in the middle. We lean a little left a little right, work, pay taxes,raise children,try to stay out of trouble. Folks like Beck as well as Maddow Are so wrapped up in themselves they miss life. Political beliefs are like charities the more you donate to them the more you believe in their worth/cause. Hope your back gets better. Walk on the beach stay out of the car Have a Makers Mark, Madeira, Grenadine and a orange garnish.New twist on manhattins.

kgwhit said...

I could not agree more. A number of my friends are in the news biz in DC and a kid who is at NBC news at 30 Rock. They work some pretty long hours and work very hard to put out an accurate report of what is happening in their realm. They really are not waking up thinking how they are going to change the US.

Unknown said...

Yes. And regarding Mr Beck: do question his sanity. Although I don't know much about his personal background, I'd venture to guess he has a functional, borderline personality disorder. His sense of alienation and emotional, twisted logic of conspiracies plus his belief that he/we are being persecuted has elements of that drove some of the most dangerous autocrats. His danger lies in convincing others, some quite dysfunctional, others who share his passion, to do his bidding.

Unknown said...

media conspiracy, blah, blah, blah. As always, I enjoy your writing Dennis, and the new hair do makes you look even smarter :-)

RSB said...

First Dennis- thank you for your bravery at admitting having a “number of relatives who are Glen Beck and Fox News Fans”. It’s a shame I live with every day.

Second, I think the only mistake with your piece was using logic to reach those that have entered the dark side.

Otherwise, I loved “it”.

jdb said...

An excellent piece of work. And kudos to Warrenout with the JFK reference. Very funny. Personally, I do not care about Beck. Saw his show once and thought it was a snor-fest and used my rights as an American and changed the channel. I read the NY Times and do not find it completely left-wing although Bernie Goldberg writes a different story. Back to Beck, isn't his audience diminishing?

AY said...

Fans of Glenn Beck, really?! Beck is the self-appointed wingnut ombudsman for FOX. His audience is the tinfoil hat-survivalist-Libertarian-nutbag niche demo.

You have Fox reporters engaged in a street cred fight with CNN in Libya -- like two dumb pigeons fighting over a half-eaten french fry.

And how do friends and family dismiss what the 4 NY Times reporters went through in Libya?

Remember the good old days when all we heard were the facts!!

Anonymous said...

Maybe you may want to put a twitter button to your website. I just marked down the url, however I must do it manually. Simply my $.02 :)

Anonymous said...

I come here every so often just to see if you have come back from wherever. It's like going into a house that has been long abandoned by the owners - I wondered if you ever look at it any more: anybody home?

So I was pleased to see that you deleted some rank spam - to continue the abandoned house metaphor, it's as if I found a CCTV camera secreted in the living room.

d'blank said...

I do come back and check once in a while. Funny you should use the abandoned house analogy as that's what I'm writing about on my new blog:
http://warrenexpressed.org/

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